president obama was notified. white house officials said he offered whatever assistance is needed in the response of the ensuing investigation. for more we turn to scott malone of reuters who was on the scene in boston. i spoke with him a few minutes ago. scott malone of reuters, thank you so much for joining us. what is the best, most recent information we have on what happened today? >> well, what we're hearing from boston police department at this point in time confirmed is two people dead. 23 injured. getting unconfirmed reports that boston hospitals have admitted significantly more people than that. right now they say there were two devices that went off at the finish line of the marathon. there is a third incident. it's not clear yet if it was related which happened at the john f. kennedy library that's located about three miles away from the marathon site. >> ifill: scott, where were you when this happened? >> i was in the press room at the hotel which is kind of the staging area for the marathon. we heard